Back-to-School Spending
According to economists polled by Reuters, inflation concerns are still looming. That makes back-to-school spending a little more iffy than some years.
Despite this, 54% of families surveyed by Savings.com report planning to spend more than last year. The total? Just over $600 per student. That expenditure varies by the age of the student. For example, Savings.com reports that parents will spend an average of $494 for elementary students and $780 for high schoolers. On average, only $28 of that amount will go toward doctor’s visits.
Tip: Vision screenings deliver less than 4% of “the information and value of a comprehensive eye exam.”
How can you encourage parents’ spending to include eye exams and eyewear for their children? That’s a topic that was addressed last month by Steven T. Reed, O.D., president of the American Optometric Association (AOA). In a satellite media tour, he shared tips for parents on caring for their kids’ eyes ahead of the 2024-2025 school year. The key? Back-to-school eye exams.
Facts and Figures
Some of what he addressed would be good fodder for your own social media or other direct-to-patient communications. Here are a couple of those facts and figures.
• VISION SCREENINGS. According to AOA estimates, vision screenings deliver less than 4% of “the information and value of a comprehensive eye exam.”
The amount of back-to-school dollars parents spend on doctor’s visits.
• COMPUTER TIME. Before the pandemic, estimates indicated that though 20% of preschool kids had a vision problem, fewer than 15% of them had an eye exam before entering elementary school. Since then, the time young children spend on digital devices and computers has increased. Not addressing possible vision problems can have a long-term effect on both learning and vision.
Family-friendly Resources
One of the biggest challenges is that children don’t know how they should be seeing. As a result, they’re often incapable of understanding and communicating that there is a problem.
To help both optometric practices and parents, the AOA has released a variety of family-friendly resources for you to share. Detailed at www.aoa.org/educate-your-community/childrens-vision?, they include the following:
• a press release template
• three videos
• an activity sheet
• a PowerPoint presentation
• a list of children’s vision advocacy resources
• a fact sheet
• AOA pediatric guidelines
What resources do you utilize in your practice to promote back-to-school vision care? Tell us about it and share in the conversation on Facebook here.
Stephanie De Long
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